We describe here the tyrosine kinase activity of human biliverdin reductase (BVR) and its potential role in the insulin-signaling pathway. BVR is both a substrate for insulin receptor ( dual-specificity kinases ͉ insulin receptor substrates ͉ insulin signaling pathway ͉ heme metabolic enzymes

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Conflict of interest:CA and YL have ownership in KaryoPharm and YS has ownership in EpiDestiny. CA and YL receive income from KaryoPharm. YS hold patents involving tetrahydrouridine, decitabine, and 5-azacytidine (US patents 9,259,469 B2;9,265,785 B2;9,895,391 B2).

Biliverdin IX␣ reductase (BVR) catalyzes reduction of the HO activity product, biliverdin, to bilirubin. hBVR is a serine/threonine kinase that contains a bZip domain. Presently, regulation of gene expression by hBVR was examined. 293A cells were infected with adenovirusdoxycycline (Ad-Dox)-inducible hBVR cDNA. High level expression of hBVR was determined at mRNA, protein, and activity levels 8 h after induction. Cell signal transduction microarray analysis of cells infected with expression or with the control Ad-inverted (INV)-hBVR vector identified ATF-2 among several up-regulated genes. ATF-2 is a bZip transcription factor for activation of cAMP response element (CRE) and a dimeric partner to c-jun in MAPK pathway that regulates the stress protein, HO-1, expression. Northern and Western blot analyses showed increases of ϳ10-fold in ATF-2 mRNA and protein at 16 and 24 h after Dox addition. Ad-INV-hBVR did not effect ATF-2 expression. In hBVR-infected cells, levels of HO-1 mRNA and protein were increased. In vitro translated hBVR and nuclear extract containing hBVR in gel mobility-shift assay bound to AP-1 sites in the ATF-2 promoter region and to an oligonucleotide containing the CRE site. Both bindings could be competed out by excess unlabeled probe; in the presence of hBVR antibody, they displayed shifted bands. Co-transfection of hBVR with ATF-2 or c-jun promoters caused a severalfold increase in luciferase activity. hBVR modulation of ATF-2 and HO-1 expression suggests it has a potential role in regulation of AP-1 and cAMP-regulated genes and a role in cell signaling. We propose that increased expression of the protein can be used to alter the gene expression profile in the cell.The well known function of biliverdin IX␣ reductase (BVR)

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is involved in trimethylation of histone H3 lysine 27 (H3K27), chromatin condensation and transcriptional repression. The silencing function of PRC2 complex is mostly attributed to its intrinsic activity for methylating H3K27. Unlike in B-cell lymphomas, enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) mutations in myeloid malignancies are inactivating/hypomorphic. When we assessed the mutational status in myeloid malignancies (N=469 cases examined), we found EZH2 and EED/SUZ12 mutations in 8% and 3.3% of cases, respectively. In addition to mutant cases, reduced EZH2 expression was also found in 78% cases with hemizygous deletion (-7/del7q cases involving EZH2 locus) and 41% of cases with diploid chromosome 7, most interestingly cases with spliceosomal mutations (U2AF1/SRSF2 mutations; 63% of cases). EZH2 mutations were characterized by decreased H3K27 trimethylation and increased chromatin relaxation at specific gene loci accompanied by higher transcriptional activity. One of the major downstream target is HOX gene family, involved in the regulation of stem cell self-renewal. HOXA9 was found to be overexpressed in cases with decreased EZH2 expression either by EZH2/spliceosomal mutations or because of -7/del7q. In summary, our results suggest that loss of gene repression through a variety of mutations resulting in reduced H3K27 trimethylation may contribute to leukemogenesis.